Why is block so important?

The recent 1.3 tree changes brought Block in to the spotlight.

Although I use it on my Duelist (88), I've never felt that it was as vital as Armour or life (mitigation wise) due to the fact it's luck based (you have a chance to avoid damage. If it doesn't work, you get hit on full damage).

So, based on everybody's thoughts on block's importance, I believe I might have underestimated (or misunderstood) it's functionality (based on gamepedia). For me, Max Block looks like 75% evasion, or 75% dodge. Was it the case of it being easier than the other 2 stats to achieve or does it have any other benefit (aside from "spell block" gear converters)?

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junaum wrote:

The recent 1.3 tree changes brought Block in to the spotlight.

Although I use it on my Duelist (88), I've never felt that it was as vital as Armour or life (mitigation wise) due to the fact it's luck based (you have a chance to avoid damage. If it doesn't work, you get hit on full damage).

So, based on everybody's thoughts on block's importance, I believe I might have underestimated (or misunderstood) it's functionality (based on gamepedia). For me, Max Block looks like 75% evasion, or 75% dodge. Was it the case of it being easier than the other 2 stats to achieve or does it have any other benefit (aside from "spell block" gear converters)?

hahha, you don't know what you are missing block was ridiculous because it lengthens the time between damaging blows you needed to tank substantially.

it makes everything else better , gives you more time to regen, get potion charges, leech life etc.


but the big thing to take away is that it was a defense you could easily layer on top of everything else.

block builds still get life some armor resists but block is on top of that


this is the same issue people have with crit, its op because it is basically a higher ceiling on your builds potential.

block builds go farther than non block builds , crit builds go farther than non crit builds.

it is not like you sacrifice anything to get either since it is so easy to get a rather large base to work with

there is a point where stacking either does become a tax on your passives, but one can easily get 40% block with no passive investment and 40% base crit with no passive investment.

that is a huge boost

Yes, strictly mechanically, it's actually worse than evasion or dodge, because blocking large hits can stun you and you're technically still getting hit when you block so you will get affected by 'on hit' effects.

It's easier to get than 75% evasion and getting high dodge is even more of a pain.
Any char can go for it, it has no hard dependencies on stats, gear type, slot colors...
It's readily convertable to spell block.
Many uniques provide block, there's also a block flask and you get ~30% just from sticking a shield in your free hand.
It's not an estimate like evasion, some enemies are more accurate than others but no enemy reduces block. Also, if you have RT or high accuracy you can have trouble evading your reflected damage, and block will always work. Spell block and spell dodge are also the only way for casters to avoid reflect from their spells and block can go much higher.
Some nice 'on block' interactions from skills and uniques.

You can block spells. You can't evade spells. That is all.

Why was block so important?

This game is all about making a survivable character. Two-handers and most dual wielders didn't have the survivability of a max block build.

A max block build had four times the effective hit points of any other build. If you tied in Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics, a max damage avoidance build had at least 5.7 times the effective hit points of a non-damage avoidance build. So a 4,000 life version would have about 22,000 hit points.

Energy shield is capable of getting between 5-10k hit points with energy shield alone. Tie in max block, and you can get up to 50,000 effective hit points.

Unfortunately GGG is going down a very foul path of "nerf shit that works to make stuff that doesn't work, look better". Two-handers sucked because they had no survivability compared to dual Cybil's, max block, low-life, or any of the other survivable builds. Dual wielders had some block, but not much.

Edit:

One other reason max block was so valuable: players have access to 30k "EZ" DPS. Incinerate can achieve well over 30k dps with no investment, Cybil's Paw, and less than optimal support gems. My build was pushing 28k with level 17-18 gems, Faster Projectiles, and only one added damage gem. I can only imagine what my DPS would be with another added damage gem, a good wand, and some investment.

Edit 2:

Oh, so the problem was Incinerate, not block. Someone should tell GGG.

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Rogomatic wrote:

You can block spells. You can't evade spells. That is all.

Wrong.

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Natharias wrote:

A max block build had four times the effective hit points of any other build. If you tied in Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics, a max damage avoidance build had at least 5.7 times the effective hit points of a non-damage avoidance build. So a 4,000 life version would have about 22,000 hit points.

Laughably wrong

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maotzu wrote:

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Rogomatic wrote:

You can block spells. You can't evade spells. That is all.

Wrong.

No, he's correct, you can't evade spells.

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H4NS wrote:

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Natharias wrote:

A max block build had four times the effective hit points of any other build. If you tied in Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics, a max damage avoidance build had at least 5.7 times the effective hit points of a non-damage avoidance build. So a 4,000 life version would have about 22,000 hit points.

Laughably wrong

???

When you block 75% of attacks/spells, you only take 25% of damage.
-> your effective HP is raised by 300%, 4000 life -> 16000 life

When you also have 40% dodge/30% spelldodge, this gets increased further.
Of the 25% unblocked hits, you dodge 40% -> only take 15% of hits
Effective HP: 4000 * 1/0.15 = 26666
Against spells: 4000 * 1/0.175 = 22857

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Peterlerock wrote:

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H4NS wrote:

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Natharias wrote:

A max block build had four times the effective hit points of any other build. If you tied in Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics, a max damage avoidance build had at least 5.7 times the effective hit points of a non-damage avoidance build. So a 4,000 life version would have about 22,000 hit points.

Laughably wrong

???

When you block 75% of attacks/spells, you only take 25% of damage.
-> your effective HP is raised by 300%, 4000 life -> 16000 life

When you also have 40% dodge/30% spelldodge, this gets increased further.
Of the 25% unblocked hits, you dodge 40% -> only take 15% of hits
Effective HP: 4000 * 1/0.15 = 26666
Against spells: 4000 * 1/0.175 = 22857

>you only take 25% of damage

So if I get hit by a 10k vaal smash I only take 2,5k? Is that what you are saying?

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H4NS wrote:

So if I get hit by a 10k vaal smash I only take 2,5k? Is that what you are saying?

That kind of calculation is not done assuming a one hit kill. If we worked with 10k hits the only viable defense in the game would be immortal call. It's assumed you take a number of non-lethal hits over time large enough to give you a good sample.